War Chief: Afghans Will Take Combat Lead Next Year

The Afghanistan war might look like it’s jumped the rails. But its commander says that by the fall of next year, one major development will break in the U.S.’ favor: Afghan troops will take the lead for fighting the insurgency. Just don’t think most U.S. troops will come home then.

When NATO decided in 2010 to turn the war over to the Afghans in 2014, it broke down that transition into five sequential “tranches.” Four out of those five installments will be complete by “the latter part of the summer of 2013,” said Gen. John Allen, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, who will start the final phase of transition in the early fall.

“And with that, technically, the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] moves into security lead, with that fifth tranche, across the entire country,” Allen told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday. “But that process will continue until we reach the end of 2014, where technically the ANSF is fully in the lead across the country.”

In other words, late summer 2013 marks the beginning of the end of U.S. combat in Afghanistan. The end won’t fully arrive until 2014. After that, the U.S. will probably mentor Afghan soldiers and cops through 2017; and the U.S. also wants a residual force in the country for years to come. And this is if things go well.

In January, NATO officials in Brussels quietly whispered that the real heavy lifting for the Afghanistan transition would occur in 2013. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta agreed, saying that the U.S. would move into a supporting role around much of the country then — a proclamation greeted incredulously by several U.S. senators.

Still, Allen said that despite the wave of attacks on U.S. troops by their Afghan counterparts, the U.S. was on track to meet the 2013 deadline. But U.S. forces are likely to experience more arduous combat before fully moving into a supporting role.

Afghanistan’s buck-wild east, abutting Pakistan, will be the last area U.S. troops hand off to the Afghans. “In the natural course of the campaign, which will emphasize this coming year consolidating our holds in the south while still conducting counterinsurgency operations in the east, we will see, eventually, a confluence of the movement of geography into the transition process and the campaign,” Allen said.

Allen wants to keep as many of the 68,000 troops he’ll have after this September for as long as possible. He said he wouldn’t reveal how many troops he’ll ultimately ask to keep in Afghanistan until he gives the White House an analysis. But Allen sounded like the last combat push he wants the U.S. to conduct will occur in the east — which used to be the central front of the war.

“I’m not saying things are perfect,” Allen said. “But for every bribe accepted, for every insider threat or what is known as a ‘green on blue’ incident — and I think you’re aware that, tragically, we had one overnight as two young British soldiers were killed in Helmand province — for every Afghan soldier that doesn’t return from leave, I can cite hundreds of other examples where they do perform their duties.”